Tag: Earl Scruggs

Hillbilly Soul: An Interview with Darren Nicholson of Balsam Range

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For some reason, North Carolina has long been the cradle of the Americana vanguard. In 1945, Earl Scruggs’ banjo sound created a rip-roaring hot rod of a genre called “bluegrass” (with Bill Monroe’s help, of course). In the ’60s, Doc Watson popularized a new guitar style while giving the folk revival a welcome dose of Southern authenticity. The “newgrass” boom of the 1970s owed a lot to a North Carolinian named Tony Rice, who became his era’s most important acoustic guitarist and, in turn, influenced a younger generation of fans, including Béla Fleck and Alison Krauss. Now fast forward to the 2010s and consider a Carolina string band called Balsam Range from a small mountain community in Haywood County, North Carolina.

If you approach Balsam Range with a discerning ear for key bluegrass ingredients, you won’t be disappointed. Great vocal harmony? Check. Killer instrumentalists? Check. Southern themes of home and hearth, with an accent to match? Check and check. But they also have something — a very important something — that an academic understanding of the genre tends to miss: They’re groovy. Balsam Range reminds us that bluegrass can be dancing music, hip-swinging music, backbeat music, as rhythmically hypnotic as all the plugged-in genres that formed in its wake. “It’s hillbilly soul!” says mandolin player Darren Nicholson. “It’s hillbilly funk and it’s hillbilly rock ‘n’ roll.” Not what you’d expect from the hills and hollers of Haywood County.

But Haywood County is just a stone’s throw from Asheville, after all, and maybe it’s not as culturally distant from that bohemian mecca as you’d think. Like so many hipster bourbon joints, whether in Asheville or Brooklyn, Balsam Range is playing with intriguing questions: How does Southern heritage fit into the present day? What can we learn from Appalachian traditions, and how can we carry them forward? Unlike these predictable bacon- and mason jar-themed bars, however, their approach to these questions shows some real originality, not to mention a deep knowledge of Southern music and a reverence for the richness of Appalachian culture as a whole — something they call Mountain Voodoo.

So y’all just put out Mountain Voodoo. I’ve been listening in the car. It’s a great record.

Yeah, it’s hot off the press. We’re really proud of it. I really feel like it’s the best thing we’ve ever done.

It’s clear right off the bat that you have your own style, your own sound. But I thought it was interesting that the description of Mountain Voodoo on your website mentions specific songs as if they’re different genres. It says there’s a “Tony Rice-style vocal song,” a gospel song, a honky-tonk tune, and others. How do you stay conscious of all those different styles and genres, but also just make something that sounds like Balsam Range?

Well, when you’re fan, when you truly love music, it’s like ice cream: You don’t like just one flavor of ice cream. So we can do a honky-tonk country song, we can do straight-ahead bluegrass, we can do a gospel tune, but the reality is that it’s always the five of us. You’ve got to get comfortable enough in your own skin to realize that, no matter what song you approach, it’s still us five.

I think that’s true. The whole thing sounds like one cohesive band.

Well, I hope so. We like traditional bluegrass and progressive bluegrass. We love the Americana stuff. We love playing to different crowds. We love playing to not just hippie crowds, but to any young crowd that has an open mind to music. And we try to express ourselves through different styles of music, but the reality is it’s going to sound like us. You could get George Jones to sing a Merle Haggard song, and it’ll be a Merle song, but he still sounds like George Jones! So, once you get comfortable doing your own thing — that’s the awesome part — it’s always going to sound like us.

So that’s what Balsam Range is doing, right? Focusing on having your own thing, not trying to be pigeonholed?

You’ll hear elements of all of our influences, of course. You’ll hear elements of Tony Rice or traditional stuff, but it’s about making the best music you can and being yourself. Bluegrass is like a curriculum. When you grow up playing bluegrass, it’s like learning your ABCs. You learn all that stuff, so it’s a part of you and it comes out sometimes, but that’s not what dictates who you are. You can show your roots, but you also have to do something that’s uniquely your own. Learning how … that’s a maturity thing. Once you realize how to blend that together, it can be a lot of fun.

That must be one of the hardest things to do in any style of music. You can learn the licks, you can learn other people’s songs, but how do you learn to sound like yourself?

I think that’s a problem with a lot of young musicians. Same as the problem with mainstream radio. They go with whatever is trending. You know, Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley or the Beatles didn’t just go along with whatever was trending. They stayed true to what they did. George Jones, Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs … they did their own thing. If you believe in it, then you keep hammering it out. It may take 20 years, it may take 50 years, but you have to stick with your thing.

It seems like some people treat bluegrass as a collection of licks that are supposed to be memorized and played in a certain way.

Well, the early generation really got it. Some of the newer bluegrass guys don’t — they’re trying to copy Tony Rice or J.D. Crowe. The first generation — Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Jim and Jesse, the Osborne Brothers, the Stanley Brothers — they all wanted to sound different. Then, if you’re doing your own thing, you’re not in competition with anybody else, even within your own genre. That’s what we’re trying to do in the modern day. We find songs that we like, a sound that is identifiable as us. And people like that.

People who really know bluegrass are aware of the history, about Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers, like you’re saying. But when you’re playing mandolin, are you thinking, “This is a bit of what Bill would do?” Are you conscious of drawing from the history while you’re doing it?

There are elements of that, but, you know, I try to play what fits the song. If it’s a traditional-sounding song, I may put a Monroe twist on it. If it’s a modern, edgy kind of song, I may let the rock ‘n’ roll side of me come out. If you try to back up the singer and play to the song, you can never go wrong. If you get stuck in “I only play this style” or “I only play traditional bluegrass” or “I only play progressive bluegrass,” then you’re really limiting yourself. You’ve got to have an open mind.

So there shouldn’t be any problem combining Bill Monroe with rock ‘n’ roll energy?

He’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! People forget this. He was an innovator. He was playing rock ‘n’ roll 20 years before Elvis. He influenced Chuck Berry. So he was part of the mountain music thing, the old timey fiddle music, but there was also a Black blues guitar player he grew up listening to named Arnold Shultz. That’s what makes bluegrass great. That’s what makes it uniquely American. Nothing was off limits to him.

People who are die-hard traditional Bill Monroe fans, they want to manipulate him into representing what their beliefs are. The reality is that he was open-minded. He’s the only guy in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. That was the cool thing about the old generation: Whether it was Frank Sinatra or the Beatles or Bill Monroe, they all realized they had to do their own thing. Now, when there’s a hit, they try to make 10 others that sound just like that hit. They conform to whatever is trending. Those guys didn’t give a damn about trending. They wanted to be unique.

You mentioned all the influences that combined to form bluegrass music in the early days. Taken all together, how would you sum up what bluegrass is? What is it that you love about it?

It’s soul music. It’s hillbilly soul music! It’s hillbilly funk and it’s hillbilly rock ‘n’ roll. The things that I love about a great funk band or a great rock band or a great country singer are the energy and the heart, when somebody really makes you feel something. When a great bluegrass band hits the stage and melts your face off and makes you say “WOW,” it isn’t just a bunch of guys busking with a washboard — it’s the real damn deal. It high-octane music with some real substance behind it. And when there’s substance there, that overtakes everything else. Great bluegrass gets down to the raw power of music.

I’ve heard other musicians say that, when they watch a killer funk band, they’re watching the bassist. Or when they see a tight rock band, even when there’s a great vocalist, they’re watching the drummer. When you’re listening to a great bluegrass band, what are you listening for?

It depends on the band. There are some bands I like because they’re not polished. It’s that raw thing that I love. There’s other bands I appreciate because it’s so clean, so polished. Our band tries to bridge the gap. The way I see it, whatever the band, if someone is truly good, you feel something when you hear the music.

My son is a huge Beatles fan. I mean obsessed. And that’s awesome. I love the Beatles. So, this Summer, we went on vacation and stopped off in Cleveland and took him to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Bill Monroe is in there and Hank Williams is in there, as well as a lot of Black blues musicians. You can see the roots of where it all comes from. Monroe is in there all over the place. If you listen to his early stuff — there’s a song called “Bluegrass Stomp” — you can hear it, man! It’s like Chuck Berry 20 years before Chuck Berry. It’s clearly rock ‘n’ roll. So I was thinking, you know, you can’t move forward unless you can look backward at the early guys.

You think something’s different now? You think we’ve lost some of that early spirit or energy or whatever it was?

Yeah, it’s seems too commercial now, too focused on repetition. If Miley Cyrus has a hit, they want the next 10 singers to have a hit that sounds just like her hit. They don’t realize that competition is what makes it great.

I love that we’re covering ground from Bill Monroe to the Beatles to Miley Cyrus.

There you go! You know, American music from the ’30s to the ’70s, I just don’t think we’re ever going to see a period of creativity like that again. The machine of selling stuff has now gotten away from that.

 

How old were you when you got into bluegrass?

I’ve got pictures of me on stage at 18 months old. I’ve been around it all my life. My dad played old-timey music, country music. The people who grew up in Western North Carolina, Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, we’re very fortunate to be a part of that Appalachian music tradition. Mountain Voodoo — that’s not just the title of our record; it’s what happens when you’re exposed to it. There’s a magic in this music that gets passed down from generation to generation. That’s what we hope to carry on. I can’t remember not being into music and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

I started learning guitar, including a lot of old folk tunes, Doc Watson tunes, when I was about 10. I have other friends who discovered bluegrass when they were 25. And then there’s your story — on stage at 18 months. Is there something different between growing up on it and learning about it later? What do you think it gives you when you’re really reared on it from a baby’s age?

Well, we all end up getting to the same watering hole. But how you appreciate it or respect it, that’s a different thing. It becomes a part of your blood. It’s not just something you do when you get off work on Friday — “Oh, I think I’ll go see a show at the Orange Peel.” Those folks enjoy it, but we wake up every day thinking about it, getting the instrument out of the case, and working at getting better, rather than something you do for fun on the weekends. It’s in the fiber of our being, a part of us. For some folks, it’s an outlet, and they enjoy it on that level, but it’s a question of what level you take it to. It’s like throwing a baseball in the yard versus working hard enough to be Greg Maddux. We all love and appreciate it. The question is, “Is music a part of your life or is it your life?”

Do you have a particular memory of being moved by music as a child and realizing you wanted to pursue it?

I remember getting a Louvin Brothers record — Charlie and Ira Louvin, early country music — and I would sit in my room when I was 10 years old and listen to these records. They were singing about dying, about working in the cotton fields, losing loved ones — nothing that I’d experienced — but I would just sit there and cry. I was just emotionally overtaken. They were singing so good, they were playing so good, and they were being genuine about what they were singing. That’s why I can’t get fired up about what’s trending in L.A. or Nashville. It feels forced.

Y’all are from the mountains of North Carolina, and it seems like that’s a big part of who you are. I’d love for this interview to help explain to people who don’t know tons about bluegrass how to place Balsam Range within the genre. Does being from North Carolina, or from the mountains, affect the way you play bluegrass, the way you relate to the music?

Sure, what we play is Carolina music. Also it’s mountain music. Bill Monroe, of course, was from Kentucky, but it didn’t sound like bluegrass until Earl Scruggs came into the picture. He was from Shelby, North Carolina. And there is a magic that happens here in the mountains. That’s the voodoo. It grows here, you know? So when we make music, we’re paying homage to the people who came before us. There’s a sense of nostalgia, sure. But, from our perspective, we’re just keeping in mind all those who influenced us and just trying to keep the bar high.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: An Unbroken Circle

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In 1971, Richard Nixon was president and the United States was divided. It was an era marked by civil rights struggles, Vietnam War demonstrations, and labor union losses. The counterculture movement that evolved in the 1960s was continuing to take shape and was intrinsically linked to the outpouring of a whole generation’s worth of musical innovation. Amidst social upheaval, at a time when your music reflected your politics, a common ground was forged among unlikely sources. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s milestone 1972 album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, single-handedly bridged generational and cultural gaps by pairing country music veterans with young hippies from Southern California.

“I don't think we realized the sociological impact that that record would have,” says Jeff Hanna, founding singer and guitarist of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. “On the surface, it looked like, 'What the hell are they doing making music together?'”

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band formed in Long Beach, California, in 1966 and became a staple of the wave of California rock that included acts like the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and the Eagles who were all exploring old-time country sounds in their own music. By the time the recording sessions for the Circle record began, the Dirt Band was fresh off the success of their cover of Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles,” which had become a Top 10 pop single. Record executives and fans, alike, were anticipating a follow-up in the same vein. But the band’s manger and producer, Bill McEuen — brother of band member John McEuen — had another idea: to get the band in the studio with the bluegrass and country musicians that had influenced them when they were coming up.

“I have a lot of respect for [the Dirt Band] for doing it, for going out on a limb, you know, and doing that kind of thing in the middle of a career that was just really on its way up at that point,” says multi-instrumentalist and longtime Dirt Band collaborator Jerry Douglas. “They were the famous people on the record and their guests were the people that they were introducing to their audience, you see. So it was kind of going out on a limb for them. You know, the record company didn't wanna do it. Nobody wanted to do it. They just kind of pushed it through and it was a success.”

When it came time to recruit a slew of Nashville greats for the project, the generational divide ended up working in the Dirt Band’s favor. Their friendship with the Scruggs family began when Earl Scruggs brought his children, who were fans of the band, to a gig they played at Vanderbilt University in 1970. Scruggs became the first artist they invited to guest on the Circle record. They snagged Doc Watson the same way: his son, Merle, was a fan of the band.

“One of the things that was really interesting with a lot of these acts is, their kids were fans of the band. There was kind of a stamp of approval from the younger generation,” recalls Hanna. “And Merle Watson said something like, ‘Well daddy you love the way they sing and play.’ And also the invitation was, ‘We've got Earl Scruggs.’ And Doc said, ‘Yeah, that sounds like fun,’ so there it went.”

Other guests included heavyweights like Jimmy Martin, Mother Maybelle Carter, and Roy Acuff.

“I mentioned to Bill McEuen, at one point, that I'd read this article about Roy Acuff where he said he'd play real country music with anybody anywhere. And we talked about that and Bill said, ‘Well, let's see if he'll put his money where his mouth is,’” Hanna says.

But Acuff wasn’t an easy sell: His initial meeting with the band didn’t go as well as they were hoping. It turns out that the idea of West Coast hippies in their early 20s recording in Woodland Studios in Nashville was a bit of a hard pill to swallow.

“[Acuff] came in and he was just largely unimpressed with us. He was kind of like — he wasn't totally negative — it's just kind of flat and he said later, ‘Well, I don't trust a man that I can't see his face,’ and we all had like massive beards and mustaches and long hair,” Hanna remembers. “Meanwhile, we got in the studio and recorded our tracks with Merle Travis and, lo and behold, Roy Acuff comes strolling in, or sort of quietly walks in the back of the studio at the end of the day. And Bill played him — it was either ‘Nine-Pound Hammer’ or ‘Dark As a Dungeon’ — one of those. And Roy got this big smile on his face and he said, ‘Well, that ain't nothin' but country. I'll be here tomorrow. Be ready.’ So we cut those tracks, so he was in.”

The result was a monumental cross-generational album that combined genres and styles.

“Just to put it in context: You've got Merle Travis's Travis-picking; you've got Earl Scruggs' Scruggs-style banjo; you've got Maybelle Carter, Carter scratch; and Doc Watson — even though flat-picking isn't named after him, it should be,” says Hanna. “I mean, just all these guys that were just so big in our world.”

The Dirt Band’s love of country and old-time sounds goes way back, so it was a natural progression for them to want to honor and record with these musicians.

“A lot of us got into bluegrass because of the folk boom in the mid-60s. A lot of us also had older siblings and they'd bring home these records by Peter, Paul, and Mary or the the Kingston Trio,” says Hanna. “When I first started playing guitar, I bought a Pete Seeger instructional LP and book that had a section about the Carter Family and Maybelle Carter and her playing style, as well … I was a huge fan of the Everly Brothers. We all were. The Everlys, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, Little Richard: that stuff killed us. But I think something we all had in common was our deep love of the sounds of Appalachia. And blues for that matter. But a lot of it was acoustic music, I've gotta say.”

Singer/songwriter Jackson Browne joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band when he was 17 years old, after meeting them at a gig at the Paradox club in Tustin, California, a little town in Orange County. “Getting to play with them was a huge installment in my musical education because I got to sit there and play these really intricate songs,” Browne recalls. “I mean, they were all better players than me, so I learned a lot.”

What struck him immediately about the band, he says, was their vast musical palette.

“The Dirt Band was great because they were true music fans and music aficionados. They weren't just kids that were playing folk music that they heard. They dug deep, is what I'm saying,” says Browne. “They found recordings of the Memphis Jug Band and those things were hard to find. I mean, like that wasn't just lying around. And they were kind of musicologists even then, from the very beginning.”

This year, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band celebrated their 50th anniversary as a band. In commemoration, they returned to Nashville for a star-studded concert at the famed Ryman Auditorium last September, which aired on PBS and was released on DVD. Aptly titled Circlin’ Back, the show was both a nod to the first Circle record and a career retrospective that incorporated the musicians that have impacted the band’s history. Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, Rodney Crowell, Jerry Jeff Walker, John Prine, Jerry Douglas, and Jackson Browne were among the handpicked guests.

“What was even cooler to me than playing the show that night was the rehearsals that we had before,” Douglas recalls. “The first time you do a run-through of one of those songs is so magical. It has all of this extra spark and fear and everything in it. So there were sparks flying in the rehearsal hall when we were doing these things and trying to figure out who played on what.”

Just as the Dirt Band introduced their audience to their earlier influences on the first Circle record, the Circlin’ Back anniversary show connected the next generation of artists and fans together. Musicians like Vince Gill and Jerry Douglas, who remember buying the first Circle record when it came out, are now considered “little brothers” of the Dirt Band. Although they are each musical powerhouses in their own rights, the anniversary show was an opportunity for them to play with some of their heroes.

“I think the first time I played on the song with Jackson Browne that I played lap steel on, I held my breathe through the whole thing,” Douglas says. “I'm such a fan of all of those guys and then they bring Jackson Browne in, and I'm playing on this thing with Jackson Browne and I'm just going nuts inside. So much raw emotion that's happening.”

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has always had the ability to tap into emotion. Through their shared love of traditional music, they impacted legions of listeners by bridging generations and styles. Their legacy is littered with stories of parents and children bonding over the first Circle record, which is arguably one of the most significant releases in the history of music. At a time of cultural unrest, it showcased music’s ability to bypass divides and cross boundaries. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was Americana before Americana had a name, and their genre-bending illustrates the most important facet of music: how it connects us all.

Photo of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in the early 1970s courtesy of the artist.

STREAM: Blue Highway, ‘Original Traditional’

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Artist: Blue Highway
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Album: Original Traditional
Release Date: September 9
Label: Rounder Records

In Their Words: "This is a very special record for us. It's our first with Gaven Largent, and our first 'concept' record, in a way. It's all original material in the traditional style. That might sound like a contradiction in terms to some folks, but the 'founding fathers' of the music who created what we know as 'traditional bluegrass' wrote original music. Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Carter Stanley, Don Reno … so many great writers from that era. So, in one way, we feel like we are sort of carrying on the tradition even more by doing an all-original set of tunes that haven't been done before." — Tim Stafford

"My favorite part about this album is that it's simply rock-hard, straight bluegrass! Three out of the four songs that I co-wrote on this album were written while in a Stanley Brothers frame of mind, and I love that kind of music. There are other great traditional flavors on here, too. I hope you enjoy." — Shawn Lane

"After 22 years of creating some great music with my brothers in Blue Highway, I am so proud to be a part of yet another wonderful album. So thankful that God has seen fit to allow me to continue to do what I love so much. So glad that we have gotten back to the roots of what makes this music real to so many people." — Wayne Taylor

Dwight Yoakam: The Kentucky Son’s Bluegrass Birthright

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Country music got to know Dwight Yoakam through radio stations and multi-platinum records, witnessing his distinctive style cut through the Nashville machine in a way that was nearly impossible to ignore. He debuted with 1986’s Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., landing the first of three consecutive number one country albums and, over the course of his genre-pioneering career, Yoakam has sold more than 25 million records, charted 22 Top 20 singles in Hot Country Songs, won two Grammy Awards (and been nominated for 19 more), and landed nine platinum or multi-platinum albums.

But Yoakam’s introduction to country came up through hollers and Kentucky living rooms rather than with splashy records or big best-sellers. “Here's the thing: I was born in rural, southeast Kentucky, in Pike County. Bluegrass is in your DNA, when you're born there. It's mountain music,” he says. His earliest memory of music doesn’t involve old records or radio shows, but rather Yoakam remembers traipsing up the mountain with his grandfather on Sundays after church and listening to music made alongside ‘coon hunting. “It looked like it might have been an abandoned mining site — a coal mine site that had been left to flood back into a fairly good-sized lake. There were guys walking around with their guitars, banjos, mandolins, playing in small groups, just walking up to one another and just starting to pick. They were out there playing bluegrass face to face with one another. I had exposure to that very young in an absolutely pure way.”

Yoakam’s background in traditional bluegrass and an early affinity for the classics led him to a few starstruck moments throughout the course of his career, some of which hinted that he might be suited to embrace a bit more twang in his regular rotation. Most notably, he recalls recording with Earl Scruggs on 2001’s Earl Scruggs and Friends.

“I was there in the studio in L.A., with Earl and the band were just warming up. Earl and I were playing back and forth and I started playing a melody that came to my head. Earl started answering me on the banjo. Here I am, sitting close to the Jimi Hendrix, if you will, of bluegrass banjo, right? The godfather of modern bluegrass banjo,” he says. They’d originally sat down to record a platinum Scruggs single Yoakam frequently covered, "Down the Road.” But Louise Scruggs came into the studio when they were still fiddling around with Yoakam’s melody of the moment.

“She said, ‘I believe you need to record this.’ I said, 'Louise, it's not really a song.' She goes, ‘Well we need to record it.’ By that point, I was singing some consonants and vowels, which is what I do as a writer when I sneak up on a song. It became the song, ‘Borrowed Love.’ Louise and Earl Scruggs looked at me and said, ‘Well, you're just a bluegrass singer in disguise.’ I said, ‘Probably so.’”

For a man with bluegrass in his bloodline, it’s surprising to hear Yoakam say so emphatically that his forthcoming record, Swimmin' Pools, Movie Stars — a full-length that re-imagines many of his commercial country songs as bluegrass tunes — wasn’t really his idea. It was Kevin Welk — owner of Vanguard and Sugarhill Records and eventual executive producer on Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars — who approached Yoakam’s team with the concept. Label obligations and release schedules got in the way, but when the timing was finally right, the label was ready: Americana super-producer Gary Paczosa and producer/songwriter Jon Randall Stewart committed to the project and had hand-picked an all-star lineup of a band to back Yoakam, too. Award-winning players like guitarist Bryan Sutton, banjo and fiddle player Stuart Duncan, bassist Barry Bales, and banjoist Scott Vestal make a convincing lineup alone and, with Yoakam on lead, the project was bound to go somewhere special. But the producers had landed on something Yoakam hadn’t planned — to re-record his old songs with a new twist.

“Melodically, these songs were predisposed to it — that's what I think Gary and Jon thought,” says Yoakam. “And I've always pointed to that when I did interviews: There's a lot of bluegrass, melodically, in what I write."

Those traditional bluegrass sensibilities were just waiting to bubble to the surface, and they lend a new life to lesser-known singles like “Free to Go” and “Home for Sale.” Even casual fans of Yoakam will delight in more popular numbers like “These Arms” and “Guitars, Cadillacs” with their old-fashioned harmonies and quick instrumentals. Nuances in the vocals on Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars are a giveaway that Yoakam isn’t just dabbling in tradition: This is an album he was meant to record. Varying his inflection on old lyrics, his performance feels warm and complementary — at times even reverent — to the harmonies beside him and the deft picking in the backdrop. What gets Yoakam talking fastest about bluegrass music and the “bluegrass way” of doing things, though, isn’t one of his own songs — it’s the record’s album closer and lone cover, a rendition of Prince’s “Purple Rain.”

“We tracked 13 tracks in four days,” he says. “The third day of tracking, I went in and, that morning, when I was getting ready to leave to go to the studio, CNN had breaking news. I happened to look over at the TV and I was in the hotel in Nashville and saw the awful unfolding of the news that Prince had died so suddenly and so tragically, so alone.”

Get a bunch of musicians mourning a genius in one room, and you’re going to come away with some good listening. They worked through “Purple Rain” right there, testing it out and ultimately tracking it live before setting the recording aside.

“Just the moment — it was just the emotion from everybody in the room. I didn't touch the song again for about three weeks,” Yoakam says. “I didn't listen to it. I thought, ‘We're probably not going to put it on the record. It was nice to do.’”

Prodding soon came from Paczosa and Stewart, who had left Nashville before the final day of recording and simply saw the raw recording among the other audio files for the upcoming album. The two producers asked Yoakam if they could try listening to the track for the record. “We played it, put it on, and it was what it is, what you hear [on the record]. In fact, I left the scratch vocal on it. I did a harmony. It's exactly as we played it that day about four hours after everybody heard he died,” Yoakam says. “I think, because of that, it had an emotional expression that you couldn't have in any other moment.”

Many of the moments that foreshadowed Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars were similarly off-the-cuff experiments in the studio over the years. As Yoakam verbally picks apart the hours that built up to the “Purple Rain” cover that eventually made the album, it grows clearer that this album fusing his songs with the traditions and the twang that built him was more about him and his roots than he first implied.

“One of the things that probably seeded that moment in my mind was Ralph Stanley,” Yoakam notes. “He cut one of my songs, 'Miner's Prayer,' and I recorded one of his songs, 'Down Where the River Bends.' I had always been a fan of the Stanley Brothers. We cut it, as he would say, ‘in the mountain way,’ with Curly Rae Kline on fiddle. It was done around the microphone with a live band in a circle, playing those songs. They looked at me and said, ‘Dwight, I believe you might be a bluegrass singer.’ I said, ‘Well I guess it's somewhere in my birthright.’”

 

For more Artist of the Month coverage, read Dacey's profile of bluegrass phenom Sierra Hull.

Lede illustration by Cat Ferraz.

Ned Luberecki Shares His Banjo Mastering Secrets

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The banjo can be an intimidating instrument — listen to an Earl Scruggs tune and you may become convinced you need an extra set of hands to pull off those lightning-fast rolls and leads. Luckily, though, there are a number of resources out there for those of us not blessed with the natural musical ability of our bluegrass forefathers. One of those resources is the Complete 5-String Banjo Method series by Ned Luberecki. 

Luberecki is a renowned banjo player known for his musical work with Chris Jones & the Night Drivers and for his contributions to SiriusXM’s Bluegrass Junction. He’s also a banjo teacher in Nashville, Tennessee, a gig that helped him hone the material that would become the Complete 5-String Banjo Method after he was tapped by Alfred Music Publishing to helm the project a couple years back. The series — which is broken into Beginning, Intermediate, and Mastering levels — is a crash-course in all things banjo, from learning those first rolls in the Beginner book to understanding the intricacies of classical music theory in the Mastering edition. 

“I’ve been teaching banjo since the 1980s,” Luberecki says. “I’ve looked at all the other banjo methods that are out there and I’ve seen most of them. Of course I’m familiar with some of those written by my heroes in the banjo world, Pete Wernick and Tony Trischka and Alan Munde. For a long time, I’d thought about doing it not only because it seemed like another opportunity for me to have something out there, but also, the thing that took me so long was to try to come up with my own take on it. Because, you know, let’s face it, when it comes to beginning banjo, you have to start with the basics, which are how to play some forward rolls, how to play some chords, how to read tablature — the same stuff that’s going to be covered in anybody’s book. So it took years of teaching to come up with my own approach, to tailor things to the way I like to teach, as opposed to making it like everybody else’s."

It took Luberecki an entire year to translate that method to the page (and to the screen and speakers — each book also comes with audio and video components), describing the process as “a lot harder than [he] expected.” 

“I played every single note in the book … and that was a long process,” he laughs.

And there were lots of notes. The series is a comprehensive look at not just banjo techniques, but at music theory and history as it pertains to the most important instrument in bluegrass.

“The Beginning book starts with the very basics for someone who has never picked up a banjo before,” Luberecki explains. Beginners will learn rolls, chords, melodies, reading tablature, and basic banjo maintenance before graduating to the Intermediate book, which prepares players for their very first jams and collaborations with other pickers and players. For the Mastering book, Luberecki looks past bluegrass. “I took the approach that the 5-string banjo is being used and accepted in music other than bluegrass,” he says. With that in mind, he introduces players to classical music theory and more advanced musical languages.

It’s a valuable resource for players of any level, one Luberecki would have enjoyed having access to back when he first picked up the banjo during his youth.

“Yeah, I didn’t have a DVD player, that’s for sure,” he says. “I started by taking lessons. I took from a banjo player from around the Annapolis, Maryland, area named Bob Tice. As a matter of fact, people who are familiar with the guitarist Jordan Tice, it’s his father. So I took banjo lessons from him and he started me out with a couple of different method books. I remember one of them that I used was the Pete Wernick bluegrass banjo book, which has been around for a very long time, and also, of course, the Earl Scruggs book, which is great because it had all of those arrangements of classic Earl Scruggs songs in it. So I started by taking lessons from him and from working through those couple of books.”

So, ready to pick up a banjo yet? Luberecki has a final piece of advice. “My biggest advice for anybody who wants to start learning to play the banjo is listen to lots of banjo music,” he says. “You’re never going to be effective at playing it if you don’t know what it’s supposed to sound like. So listen. Find the players that you really like the sound of, find the bands and music that you really like, and ingest as much of it as you can. And go see people play it. Not only does that give you a clue as to how people work with their hands, but it’s just inspiring to go see great live music."

Check out the Complete 5-String Banjo Method series here. 

Lede photo credit: Me in ME via Foter.com / CC BY

Counsel of Elders: Del McCoury on Finding Your Way

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One would be forgiven for expecting Del McCoury, at 77 years old, to slow down and ease into retirement. But the opposite is true. In 2016, McCoury is releasing two albums — a live album with David Grisman and, on April 15, Del and Woody, the highly anticipated studio follow-up to 2013’s Streets of Baltimore. As McCoury accumulates years, he adds projects. He runs his own record label and a yearly festival. He constantly tours and he hosts a weekly radio show. Slowing down is simply not in his future.

Del McCoury is a living legend, having first attained fame in the 1960s as the lead singer in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. In the '90s, he reached new levels fronting his own band. McCoury is the link in the chain connecting bluegrass pioneers to the present.

For Del and Woody — and several great albums before it — Nora Guthrie gifted a batch of unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyrics for songs which were never recorded or even musically notated. It was up to McCoury and his band to bring these tunes to life. He did a marvelous job. Del and Woody will not only appease the Del-Heads and Woody fans, but it will also convert new listeners to bluegrass, McCoury, and Guthrie. It is a remarkable album — quite possibly McCoury’s best, which is saying a lot.

This is your first studio album since 2013’s Streets of Baltimore, which won a number of awards. Del and Woody has been talked about for years. This is arguably your most anticipated album to date. How do you feel now that it’s about to be released — relief, excitement? Do you still get nervous?

Well, I guess it’s mostly nervous. It’s a lot of lyrics to remember. I use a teleprompter, there’s so many words. I have another album coming out this year. It’s a live one I recorded with Dawg — David Grisman.

How do you deal with nerves and stress, at this point in your career? Do you have any tricks?

I guess I just stress. Remembering the words is the hardest part. I still get nervous before shows. I think it’s good.

Does it keep things fresh that way?

Yeah, I think so. You know, at this point, I don’t make a set list. We play whatever the crowd requests. We do one show of Woody and Del and then a regular set.

You’re doing two sets a night right now?

We’re doing all of Woody and Del, which is 12 songs, and then do requests for about 14 songs. It’s about 45 minutes each.

Do you find that certain songs are popular in different regions of the country?

Oh, sure. It’s different everywhere, but some songs are more popular than others. The area affects it.

Can you tell me about the genesis of this project — how it came to be?

I was playing a Woody Guthrie festival out in Tulsa. I can’t remember who all was playing. John Mellencamp was smoking — I mean the cigarette kind. He was smoking one cigarette after another. I thought, “That’s bad,” because of his voice.

We sang “Philadelphia Lawyer.” I’ve always liked that song. And [Sings] “I’ve been doing some hard traveling.” When we were done, Nora told me that, if her father could have afforded musicians, he’d have had a band like ours. It was a real honor. In the next breath, she told me she had a bunch of unrecorded songs of her father's and asked if I’d like to record them. Of course, I would.

Were you given the actual handwritten lyrics?

Oh, yes, isn’t that unbelievable? Nora sent over 26 songs. Well, some were copies. They were written between 1930 and 1946. It was his own handwriting. He would draw little pictures. They had the date he wrote them. I guess he was always writing songs. We recorded 14 songs, but put 12 on the record. I’m going to record them all.

What was your process for finding melodies and adding instrumentation?

I read the words and I could hear the melody and spacing and the keys. It was easy. I only had to do half the usual work. He kept real good notes. The dates were on there, and there were drawings.

There are a lot of humorous songs in this batch …

Woody Guthrie wrote a lot of songs. He must have always been writing. There’s a song on here called “Wommin’s Hats.” It’s from his first day in New York, and hats must have been a big thing back then. He got to New York and wrote “This Land Is Your Land” and the next day he wrote “Wommin’s Hats.” You know, he probably wrote 12 songs in between.

That’s a great song. “New York Trains” is one of my favorites, too.

That’s another one. It’s rich in details. It’s all about his family coming to New York.

It still seems relevant, too. The cab ride in the song is $11, which must have been outrageous for back then.

Yep, and there’s the line about the cops making them get off at the stops.

Let’s talk about your early career for a second. You sang with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys in the '60s. Bill Monroe took a lot of musicians under his wing and served as a mentor and launching pad for their careers. What did you learn from your time with Bill? Was he full of advice?

You know, Bill Monroe didn’t give any advice. The singer before me was Jimmy Martin. He would tell all of his musicians what to play, but not Bill. He didn’t give any advice on guitar or singing. He was a tenor, so he’d sing around the singer. He’d play around the musicians. Bill really set the template for all of us. Before Bill Monroe, there wasn’t bluegrass.

How do you feel about the future of bluegrass? Are there any younger bluegrass bands that you like?

I don’t listen to much new music. When I was younger, if something made an impression, I would remember it forever. It doesn’t happen now. I guess it’s because of the vocals. They all sound the same. The old singers are different. You can tell a Mac Wiseman from a Lester Flatt and a Jimmy Martin. The new ones all sound the same. I guess it’s because they’re trying to copy. I was trying to copy when I started, too. You got to find your own way of singing, doing those things that are different.

So you think the singers need to find their own voice in order to keep bluegrass relevant?

Yes, I would say that. They need to sing songs that they like and in their own voice. You know, my sons play in my band. A couple years ago, I was talking with my manager — I think it was my manager. I was getting older. I still feel great. I can play a 90-minute show and it’s not a problem, but when you get over 70 … I think it was my manager’s idea to send the boys out on the road so I could ease up a bit. We called them the Travelin' McCourys. They got this real hot guitar player. He’s young, used to play with Ricky Skaggs. He’s great.

I’m busier than ever now, though. I have my radio show. I’m playing with Dawg, David Grisman, and we’re doing shows. I have my festival. It’s going good. Real good. And I have my own label. I’m busier than ever.

So your advice to the next generation of musicians is stay active in the industry — don’t limit yourself?

Yes, I’d say that. You need to be out playing and working. And you need to find your own way of doing things.

Photo credit: Jim McGuire

Watch Rad ’80s Bluegrass Documentary ‘That’s Bluegrass’

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There's nothing quite like a great, vintage documentary. And one about bluegrass? Well, that's documentary gold, in our opinion. So we were pretty excited to find That's Bluegrass, a late '70s/early '80s documentary that explores the genre's front porch origins and features footage of Jimmy Martin, Ralph Stanley, Lester Flatt, and more.

Director John G. Thomas captures the landscape — physically, in beautiful shots of Appalachia, and spirtitually, by showing the deep roots of the genre's community — through 53 minutes of live performances, candid interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage. Highlights include a young Marty Stuart playing mandolin for Lester Flatt, some insider scoop on Earl Scruggs wanting to hire a guy named "Bill" (that's Monroe, for those of you playing along at home), and footage of Dr. Ralph Stanley, now 88, back in his younger years. Performances include "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett," the latter of which you likely recognize from the classic television show The Beverly Hillbillies. 

It's so good that Rhonda Vincent herself stumbled upon it, posting a link to Facebook and citing one of the film's best moments — Lester Flatt singing the theme song for Martha White baking products. The documentary also contains the last filmed interview with Flatt before his 1979 death from heart failure at the age of 64.

Check out the trailer and watch That's Bluegrass in its entirety over at Vimeo — a couple bucks if you want to rent it, a few more if you'd like to make it yours forever.

That's Bluegrass from Echelon Studios on Vimeo.

Learn the Banjo from the Comfort of Your Phone

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Learning an instrument has never been easy, but there's nothing quite like a good teacher to have you going from zero to Scruggs in 60 seconds (or, more likely, 60 months). And what if you could carry that teacher around in your pocket? Enter Pocket Lick, a new app that could be your banjo Mr. Miyagi.

Bennett Sullivan, mastermind behind the Pocket Lick app, describes it as, "an iPhone/iPad app that demonstrates how to play banjo licks in three different formats — using tablature, watching video, and listening to audio." A musician and bluegrass fan himself — he's played banjo and guitar for 12 years and cites Béla Fleck and Tony Rice as his top two bluegrass artists — Sullivan developed the app so that banjo players can easily up their picking games by ear, by tab, or by using a combination of different methods, all from the convenience of a smartphone. 

"We came up with Pocket Lick because we saw a need for a clean, easy-to-use, and fun learning tool for bluegrass banjo players at any skill level," Sullivan says. "Bluegrass musicians regularly use licks in improvisation and creating arrangements. Essentially, licks are a staple of any seasoned musician’s vocabulary. We wanted to give our users an opportunity to easily learn these valuable phrases so they can sound better faster."

So, for $2.99, users have a veritable banjo encyclopedia at their fingertips, one that continues to prove useful even as their playing abilities improve.

"Pocket Lick is designed with the intermediate to advanced player in mind, but I urge beginners to also try learning the licks included," Sullivan adds. "I’ve always found that I improve more when the challenge is greater, and I always encourage my students to continue to challenge themselves when they pick up the instrument. Using Pocket Lick is a fantastic way to continually challenge yourself, regardless of your skill level."

So, hey, if your New Year's resolution is to channel your inner Béla, put down the tab book and grab your phone.

Learn more about Pocket Lick (and its sibling guitar app) here.

A Legend Past His Prime: Reflections on Aging Artists and Seeing Ralph Stanley Live

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In September 2010, I was supposed to see banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs perform at UNC-Chapel Hill with the Red Clay Ramblers. I had a ticket, but something came up and at the last minute I couldn’t go. Scruggs couldn’t perform anyway due to illness. The show went on without him, and his performance was never rescheduled. He passed away on March 28, 2012, and I never got another opportunity to see him.

Back in May, as I left work one night, I reminded myself to buy a ticket to see Doc Watson at the North Carolina Museum of Art (scheduled for June 30th) with my next paycheck. A few nights later, I got off work to find a text informing me of the guitarist’s death. Watson passed on the 29th, three days before that paycheck came.

So it was natural that, when I heard that the legendary Dr. Ralph Stanley was supposed to play at a small venue called the ArtsCenter just down the road from my house in Carrboro, I jumped at the opportunity to be there. Fortunately, there were no illnesses or falls to get in the way, and the show went on as planned. I had expected to be awestruck and delighted, but left feeling more guilty and heartbroken instead.

Don’t get me wrong — I felt honored to be in the presence of one of the last living pioneers of bluegrass. Chills ran down my spine when he sang  “O Death,” and my heart swelled during “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” and “Angel Band.” But the same time, all I could think was “You’re having a good time, but is he?”

Though the 86-year-old Stanley seemed genuinely humbled by the audience’s turn-out and enthusiasm, he didn’t seem entirely “there” for much of the performance. Arthritis prevented him from playing the banjo for all but a few songs. When he sang, it was mostly back-up; even then, he had to be constantly reminded of what song the band was playing. He forgot many of the words of “Amazing Grace.” And on a few songs, his grandson, Nathan Stanley, had to shout lyrics to him as the song was going on.

For the songs Stanley didn’t sing on, he stood quietly with his hands clasped in front of him while the band played and Nathan sang. The audience chuckled at his forgetfulness and the couple of times he sassed Nathan. The younger Stanley is himself a talented performer, with a voice that sounded much more mature than his age might reflect. But it wasn’t quite as fulfilling as hearing Ralph’s legendary timbre.

It was less of a show in the performing sense, and more of a experience that was telling me “aren’t you glad you get to be in the presence of Ralph Stanley?’  that is to say, the whole thing felt more than a little forced. Yes, I was glad. But it’s one thing to see someone who’s glad to be “there” in every sense of the word — physically, mentally, emotionally. It’s something completely different to see someone who’s standing on a stage for two 45-minute sets, mostly doing nothing.

None of this is to say that performers must be put out to greener pastures once they hit certain ages. I’m all for musicians creating and performing long as they can. But maybe sometimes they can’t, or even don’t want to anymore. And when that’s the case, shouldn’t we respect that? Even if that means I miss seeing another genre giant, I think — I hope — it means the image of their enormous talent lives on in our collective memory a little bit longer.